Japan’s Supreme Court has dismissed Okinawa’s rejection of a central government plan to build U.S. Marine Corps runways on the island and ordered the prefecture to approve it despite protests by locals who oppose the American troops’ presence.
I understand you didn’t say that. What I meant was, had Japan been trying to liberate Hawaii and the U.S. reacted by trying to maintain control, I would see that as U.S. imperialism. But that wasn’t the case – it was more like Napoleonic France launching an attack on British India and Britain invading France as a response. Both are imperial powers, sure, but one metropole attacking another in response to its colony being attacked is really stretching the definition of imperialism. And it helps to have somewhat restricted uses of terms like imperialism so they don’t just become meaningless (see libs calling everything done by any Bad Country “genocide”).
I understand you didn’t say that. What I meant was, had Japan been trying to liberate Hawaii and the U.S. reacted by trying to maintain control, I would see that as U.S. imperialism. But that wasn’t the case – it was more like Napoleonic France launching an attack on British India and Britain invading France as a response. Both are imperial powers, sure, but one metropole attacking another in response to its colony being attacked is really stretching the definition of imperialism. And it helps to have somewhat restricted uses of terms like imperialism so they don’t just become meaningless (see libs calling everything done by any Bad Country “genocide”).